


Flight.

by quigonejinn



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Tony Stark is five years old, he rides on a helicopter for the first time.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight.

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on [DW](http://quigonejinn.dreamwidth.org/183989.html#cutid1) on 11/14/2011.

When Tony Stark is five years old, he rides on a helicopter for the first time. It is only a short flight from the Teterboro Airport to Stark Tower for a mid-afternoon news conference and media interview, and he has ridden in a regular, charter jet plane a number of times. He knows Bernoulli's principle and the equation for the flow of incompressible liquids, but the emotion comes, as it always does for Tony, after the mathematics: he is five years old, wearing a nice suit. The nanny has been left behind on the jet, so in the helicopter, it is Tony, his father, Obadiah, and the pilot. 

Howard is in a bad temper this afternoon, so he sits in the front seat and says nothing. Obadiah takes the job of chatting with the pilot through the headset and in-flight microphone system -- the blades and engine are very, very loud, but Obadiah and the pilot are laughing about some story from Obadiah's days in the Marines; it turns out that that the pilot is ex-Navy, also spent some time in Vietnam, so they talk about bars, adventures. Obadiah takes a flask out from his pocket, has a little, and offers it over the seat to the pilot. The pilot laughs and says he has his hands full already, as it is. Howard's arms stays crossed over his chest, and Tony holds the headset on himself with both hands. It is a little too large for his fingers; it doesn't quite fit with his head, and he is completely enthralled with what he sees out the Plexiglass windows. 

Are you surprised at how Tony ends up in life? A conventional jet does not let you see so clearly, so entirely what you pass over. A helicopter does, and this the moment that Tony Stark falls in love with flight. Manhattan is underneath his feet; he can feel the engine driving the blades, and he can feel the helicopter vibrating. The flight is slow, in relative terms for airplanes, but it promises what Tony achieves later in life with the suit. There is the Hudson; there is Rockefeller Center. Glinting on the horizon is the East River. They are passing directly over Second Avenue now, and when Tony turns away from the window, he sees Obadiah and the pilot laughing with each other, and his father has finally unbent enough to take a swig from Obadiah's flask. Howard even has a little smile playing on his face. The Stark Tower chooses this moment to come into view.

This is the moment that Tony Stark falls in love with flight and begins to form his conceptions of manhood, friendship, joy. Freedom is the sight of ground dropping away from you; happiness is the relief of your father accepting having a drink. Love is Obadiah Stane helping you down from the helicopter seat because your legs are a long way from touching the ground, followed by a press conference. Your mother does not figure into this. 

Tony, how can you be surprised in the way it ends for you?


End file.
